2020 20th Anniversary Season

JULY/2020New Digital Collaboration

Online Premiere

YouTube.com/brangwendance

We have begun work on a new collaboration between MBDE performers in three cities that is designed for an online premiere in July 2020. A new score created by Danish drummer Anders Mogensen, bassist/composer Thomas Helton and trumpeter/composer Tim Hagans is in progress. We have begun rehearsing the first movement with the dancers via the online video conferencing program Zoom. We are incredibly grateful to be able to continue working together and creating new work.

Above are some initial costumes sketches for the dancers and musicians; the cranberry, dark green and black sections are stretch velvet and the lime green sections are of sheer fabric. The idea was fields of color for a vibrant super hero kind of feeling; the work explores the idea of the mysterious power and whirlwind energy that can be found in the most delicate and fragile things. This is why we started the collaboration with the virtuosic powerhouse drumming of Anders Mogensen.

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LIVE SUMMER PERFORMANCES ARE CONTINGENT UPON THE SAFETY OF ALL THOSE INVOLVED. PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR UPDATES OR SIGN OUR MAILING LIST. In the meantime, visit our ARTCAST page for free online content, and join us on YouTube in July for new work!

$20 General Admission $15 Students & Seniors

$5 Art For All Tickets (25 per performance)

$35 Patron Tickets

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Dancing the Blue Hour is a new dance and music performance work that explores what happens when people come together to experience the blue hour. Journey with us to a field in the French countryside, where crickets and night birds transport us from our frenetic daytime world to the softness of a summer night and communicate that a special time is approaching when the magic will be ours.

Dancing the Blue Hour features choreography & costumes by Michele Brangwen; music by nationally-known composer & bassist Thomas Helton and by Grammy-nominated composer & trumpeter Tim Hagans; and text by all performers. This is our most unique and experimental work yet, with the audience having the opportunity to engage and connect to the performance in new ways. Dancing the Blue Hour seeks to conjure the magic of a special shared experience with each performance.

The blue hour is the time just before sunrise at the end of the night, when the sky is a magnificent blue. Eric Rohmer's short film L'Heure Bleue (from his Quatre Aventures De Reinette Et Mirabelle) focuses on the moment when the birds, crickets and creatures of the night cease to make noise as they sense the morning coming, and at the same time the creatures of the day are quiet as they have not yet sensed the sunrise. The intensity of feeling about this time by the characters in the film suggests that there is something special about experiencing the blue hour together.

Dancing The Blue Hour is performed by Robin Gilbert Campos, Yuritzi Govea & Michele Brangwen, dancers; Danielle Reich Seale, voice; Tim Hagans, trumpet; Thomas Helton, bass; Joe Hertenstein, drums. The program will also include new music from the Danielle Reich Quartet. Lighting Design by Kris Phelps.

The premiere of Dancing The Blue Hour is made possible in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance. The commission of Dancing the Blue Hour was made possible by Joyce M. Freeman, Kevin Hogg, and Rufus & Doris Reid.

MATCH, Matchbox 2, 3400 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002

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$20 General Admission $15 Students & Seniors

$5 Art For All Tickets (25 per performance)

$35 Patron Tickets

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9/26/2019

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Ivesian Arts Presents The Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble

in a Pop-Up Performance at Diego Salazar Artist Studios

21-25 44th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101

Thursday September 26, 2019 at 7 p.m.

Please join us for this intimate performance program at the twilight hour in the beautiful windowed Diego Salazar Artist Studios. The program will include excerpts from "Dancing The Blue Hour." Seating is limited. Advance purchase recommended.Click Here To Buy Tickets.

$15 Students & Seniors (Steps or Mark Morris Dance Center Card)

$35 Patron Tickets

$100 Fall Season Sponsor

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11/22-23, 2019

THE JAZZ LOFT, Stony Brook, NY

Tickets:

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Dancing the Blue Hour is a new dance and music performance work that explores what happens when people come together to experience the blue hour. Journey with us to a field in the French countryside, where crickets and night birds transport us from our frenetic daytime world to the softness of a summer night and communicate that a special time is approaching when the magic will be ours.

Dancing the Blue Hour features choreography & costumes by Michele Brangwen; music by nationally-known composer & bassist Thomas Helton and by Grammy-nominated composer & trumpeter Tim Hagans; and text by all performers. This is our most unique and experimental work yet, with the audience having the opportunity to engage and connect to the performance in new ways. Dancing the Blue Hour seeks to conjure the magic of a special shared experience with each performance.

The blue hour is the time just before sunrise at the end of the night, when the sky is a magnificent blue. Eric Rohmer's short film L'Heure Bleue (from his Quatre Aventures De Reinette Et Mirabelle) focuses on the moment when the birds, crickets and creatures of the night cease to make noise as they sense the morning coming, and at the same time the creatures of the day are quiet as they have not yet sensed the sunrise. The intensity of feeling about this time by the characters in the film suggests that there is something special about experiencing the blue hour together.

Dancing The Blue Hour is performed by Robin Gilbert Campos, Yuritzi Govea & Michele Brangwen, dancers; Danielle Reich, voice; Tim Hagans, trumpet; Thomas Helton, bass; Anders Mogenson, drums. The program will also include new music from the Tim Hagans/Danielle Reich Quartet with special guests.

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The program features the New York premiere of WHAT WILL YOU DO WHEN YOU FEEL THEIR ABSENCE? with choreography, text & costumes by Michele Brangwen and music by Thomas Helton, with additional text by Peter Josyph. Guest artist, vocalist Danielle Reich Seale, joins the dancers and musicians for an exploration of what the symbol of the Statue of Liberty, and the ideas and ideals behind her, mean to us today.

Set in an intimate bar/café that could be in any city, WHAT WILL YOU DO WHEN YOU FEEL THEIR ABSENCE? invites the audience to watch as stories unfold about how we are all connected to each other. Brangwen writes: “Art can find ways into our hearts and minds where rhetoric falls short. I have long been thinking about a wall of dance and music. A few people standing together become a tiny segment…of a different kind of wall.”

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The program also includes UNENDING with choreography by Michele Brangwen, music by Tim Hagans, and movement and music created spontaneously in the moment by all performers. UNENDING tributes the incredible musical legacy of John Coltrane.

8/18/2018

CLOSENESS

MICHELE BRANGWEN DANCE ENSEMBLE

MIDTOWN ARTS & THEATRE CENTER HOUSTON (MATCH)

MATCHBOX 2 at 8 p.m.

The Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble presents CLOSENESS, an evening of new dance, music and film that explores the idea of closeness between people. The program will feature the premiere of "Closeness" with choreography by Michele Brangwen, music by Charlie Haden & Alice Coltrane as arranged by Tim Hagans, and featuring sections of movement and music created in the moment.

CLOSENESS takes its title from the album "Closeness" made by legendary bassist & composer Charlie Haden in 1976. The recording featured "For Turiya," a composition by Charlie Haden written for pianist and composer Alice Coltrane to perform with him on harp for that recording. Tim Hagans has arranged both the stunningly beautiful melody of "For Turyia" by Haden, as well as melodic lines improvised by Alice Coltrane on the harp, for voice, bass, trumpet & saxophone. The four musicians are joined by the dancers in a work that continually shifts focus between different pairs of performers, while also exploring the ways in which the ensemble is interconnected in performance.

The program will also include "Rain Girl," a feature for dancer Robin Gilbert Campos & trumpeter Tim Hagans that tributes the resilience of the human spirit, and an excerpt from "What Will You Do When You Feel Their Absence?" with choreography & text by Michele Brangwen and music by bassist and composer Thomas Helton.

In addition to live performance works, the evening will also feature two shorts by filmmaker Yunuen Perez Vertti on the subject of closeness.

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*Sliding Scale Tickets:

We have added two new ticket levels to our performance at the MATCH. We feel that art should be made available to everyone, regardless of their budget. So in addition to our $20 General Admission, and $15 Student & Senior Admission prices, we have made available 25 tickets at the "Art For All" rate of $5. Audience members can also purchase $35 patron tickets that include credit as donors in upcoming programs. We invite the audience to choose the level that is right for them.

11/9/2018

275 Christian Avenue, Stony Brook, NY 11790

(631) 751-1895

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The Jazz Loft presents the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble in CLOSENESS, an evening of contemporary dance and live music that explores the idea of closeness between people. The program will feature the New York premiere of "Closeness" with music by Charlie Haden & Alice Coltrane as arranged by Grammy-nominated trumpeter and composer Tim Hagans, choreography by Michele Brangwen, and featuring sections of movement and music created in the moment.

CLOSENESS takes its title from the album "Closeness" made by legendary bassist & composer Charlie Haden in 1976. The recording features "For Turiya," a composition by Charlie Haden written for pianist and composer Alice Coltrane to perform with him on harp. Tim Hagans has arranged both the stunningly beautiful melody of "For Turyia" by Haden, as well as melodic lines improvised by Alice Coltrane on the harp, for voice, bass, trumpet & saxophone. The four musicians are joined by the dancers in a work that continually shifts focus between different pairs of performers, while also exploring the ways in which the ensemble is interconnected in performance.

The program will also include "Rain Girl," a feature for dancer Robin Gilbert Campos & trumpeter Tim Hagans that tributes the resilience of the human spirit, and an excerpt from "What Will You Do When You Feel Their Absence?" with choreography & text by Michele Brangwen and music by bassist and composer Thomas Helton.